Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T08:55:35.325Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some evidence for a Dark Age trading site at Bantham, near Thurlestone, South Devon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Aileen Fox
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Bantham is a small hamlet in the parish of Thurlestone, South Devon, five miles west of the market town of Kingsbridge. During the summer of 1953, to celebrate the Coronation, the people of Bantham arranged an exhibition of material illustrating their village history. The organizer, Mrs. Clare Fox, asked me to help in identifying some ‘Roman’ pottery and other objects that had been collected from the sand-dunes at the mouth of the river Avon near by, by Mr. H. L. Jenkins of Clanacombe in the late nineteenth century. The finds had been presented subsequently to the Torquay Natural History Society's Museum by Mrs. M. Radcliffe, his daughter-in-law, and were lent by the museum for the Bantham exhibition. The finds were found to include fragments of imported amphorae of Dark Age date, similar to those found at Garranes and Tintage and therefore to merit wider recognition. I am much indebted to Mrs. Fox for guidance to the site and for the history of the discoveries; to the Council and Curator (Mr. A. G. Madden) of the Torquay Museum for the loan of the objects; to Miss Theo Brown for their illustration; to my husband Cyril Fox for help with the map (fig. 5); and to Mr. G. C. Dunning for his description and drawing of the medieval finds.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 1-2 , April 1955 , pp. 55 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1955

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 55 note 1 Ó Ríordáin, S. P., Proc. R. I. Acad. xlvii, C2, p. 77Google Scholar: quoted as Garranes.

page 55 note 2 Radford, C. A. R., Antiq. Journ. 1935, p. 401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 55 note 3 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries, ii (1902), 21Google Scholar; Trans. Dev. Assoc. xxxiii (1901), 475Google Scholar.

page 56 note 1 V.C.H. Devon, p. 580; Allcroft, H., Earthworks of England, p. 186.Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 Information from Mrs. C. Fox.

page 61 note 1 Garranes, fig. 19 and p. 127.

page 61 note 2 Ibid., fig. 23, p. 132.

page 61 note 3 A monograph on the fine red and the cross-impressed wares from Tintagel by Mr. C. A. R. Radford is due to appear in the volume of studies presented to E. T. Leeds, to be published by Methuen in 1955.

page 61 note 4 Garranes, p. 145.

page 61 note 5 Ibid., p. 86.

page 62 note 1 Garranes, footnote, p. 134.

page 62 note 2 Antiq. Journ. 1935, p. 415.

page 62 note 3 I am much indebted to Mr. Charles Thomas for information and for an opportunity to compare the sherds. See also Interim Report, in Proc. W. Cornwall F.C. (1954), 59; Classes B. II – IV (p. 68) are represented at Bantham.

page 62 note 4 Hoskins, W. G., Devon, p. 39.Google Scholar

page 62 note 5 De Excidio, iii, 27, ‘tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Dumnonia’.

page 64 note 1 Apart from one example from Parracombe near Lynton, (Trans. Dev. Assoc. xlv (1913), 270Google Scholar), these are all that are known in the county.

page 64 note 2 Nash-Williams, V. E., Early Christian Monuments of Wales, figs. 255–7, p. 223.Google Scholar

page 64 note 3 Ibid., figs. 258–9, p. 228.

page 64 note 4 Arch. Camb. 1939, p. 30.

page 64 note 5 Antiq. Journ. 1950, p. 152.

page 64 note 6 Trans. Dev. Assoc. xvii, p. 69.

page 64 note 7 Shortt, W. T. P., Sylva Antigua Iscana, pp. 101, 103, 108.Google Scholar

page 64 note 8 Conveniently accessible in Dawes, E. and Baynes, N. H., Three Byzantine Saints, p. 216, ch. 10.Google Scholar

page 64 note 9 A sherd from another pot has a similar bunghole.

page 66 note 1 London Museum, Medieval Catalogue (1940), p. 226, pl. lxiv, 3.Google Scholar

page 66 note 2 Surrey Arch. Coll. xxxv, 90, fig. 15.

page 66 note 3 Sussex Arch. Coll., lxxvi, 226, fig. i, Pl.

page 66 note 4 Journ. Chester Arch. Soc, N.S., xxxiii, 109, fig. 19.

page 66 note 5 Cf. examples from London, Guildhall Museum Catalogue (1908), pl. lxviii, 2, 13, and Cheam, Surrey Arch. Coll. xxxv, 86, fig. 8.

page 66 note 6 Antiq. Journ. xx, 103–12; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. lxviii, 30–44; lxxi, 68.

page 66 note 7 London Museum, Medieval Catalogue, p. 205, pl. lvi and fig. 68.

page 66 note 8 Ulster Journ. Of Archaeology, xiii (1950), 66–75Google Scholar.